Home
by FootlooseandFancyFree
Summary: Lin is tired. Who can she turn to when there's no one else left? She finds help and advice in an old friend and a dear family member.


Lin walked around in a daze for most of the night.

Amon had released her from Air Temple Island just after…just after it had happened. She would have killed them all. Killed every single last one of those damn equalists. But they trussed her up and tossed her off the island like a sack of meat. She didn't know where to go. Her apartment had been leveled in the bombings. Police headquarters was under equalist control. Tenzin, Pema and the children were halfway across the Earth Kingdom by now. And the Avatar was nowhere to be found. Republic City had fallen.

She was somewhere in the Dragon Flats section of the city, but other than that she just didn't know. She had lost contact with her element. The ground was just ground now; it had no feeling, no stories to tell. She could only trust her eyes, and the darkness betrayed even those. She didn't feel safe anymore. She stumbled in the shadows, avoiding all who crossed her path. Any other night she would have strolled through these streets with pride. They were her streets. They were under her control and no one else's. But not tonight. Tonight she was alone and in unfamiliar territory with nothing to protect her. She was lost and scared.

But not completely lost. She staggered around a corner and saw a familiar sight. She almost didn't recognize it at first. In her muddled world, it was just another apartment building, another black mass in the dark night.

But something got through, a memory of a memory. Memories of late night sparring matches, heated arguments over probending, lessons with the badgermoles in the middle of the night. She walked up the steps and knocked wearily on the door.

A few seconds later, there was a shuffling inside and the door creaked open. A woman, perhaps in her seventies, opened the door. She was shorter than Lin, with her still-jet-black hair up in a bun. Her eyes were a misty green, and her feet were bare. She stared at Lin for a few seconds before touching her shoulder.

"Come in." She said quietly. Lin followed the woman across the threshold and sat down on a couch in a small room. The woman handed Lin a cup of tea and sat down next to her. They sat in silence, drinking for a long time. Lin, still in a daze, set the tea down on the table. It was passed down from Fire Nation royalty, among the best tea in the world, but she wasn't thirsty.

"Mother…"

"What happened, Lin?" Toph said, setting the tea down. Lin looked at her mother, tears welling in her eyes.

"I was taking Tenzin and Pema and the children off the island-"

"Are they alright?" Toph asked, a worried look in her eye. "Did you get them away safely?"

"Yes." Lin said firmly. "Yes, mother, they're alright."

"So what happened?"

"We were under attack by equalist airships." Lin said, the worms coming more and more quickly. "Tenzin was going as fast as he could, but they were gaining, and I couldn't stop them. They were so close, and I…I jumped onto the airship and I took it down. I crashed it." Lin noticed her mother smiling at her triumph and smiled a little herself. "I took the first one out and moved on to the second, but the equalists appeared. There were so many. I brought two or three but they overwhelmed me. They electrocuted me.

"They knocked me out and took me back to Air Temple Island. They tied me up and brought me into the main common, and…oh, he was there, mother!" Toph nodded in understanding and touched her daughter's arm reassuringly. Tears winked in Lin's eyes. The memories hurt, but she knew she had to get them out. They would tear her apart from the inside out if she didn't.

"He wanted to know where the airbenders had gone." She said, trying to regain her composure but failing. Tears rolled down the police chief's face as she spok. "I told him…I told him I would never tell him anything. And he…mom, he took my bending away!" She let a sob escape her lips, and her head dropped into her hands. Toph took lin in her arms, comforting her as she cried.

"It's okay, Lin." She said quietly. "It's okay." Lin looked up, tears streaked across her dusty face.

"But it's not okay!" She said. "The ground is just ground. I can't feel anything. It's just…it's just dirt, mother!" She swept her hand across the table, sending the tea cup to the floor with a crash. "There's nothing, nothing to see. I feel-I feel so blind! I failed you, mother. All those years you spent teaching me to be the best earthbender in the world, they've all gone to waste. I'm sorry."

"Listen to me, Lin." Toph said calmly. "Your bending does not define you. You are your own person, and it does not matter what that monster did to you because he did not break you. Do you understand me, Lin Beifong? That man did not break you. Because you're not just the best earthbender in the world. You are my daughter and the bravest, strongest, woman I've ever known and you are not going to let some rebel in a mask let you question who you are. Am I right?"

"You're always right, mother." Lin said, a faint smile dancing across her lips.

"Damn right I am." The old woman said. "You can sleep here tonight. I heard about your apartment. And tomorrow you're going to find Avatar Korra and you're going to take out Amon together. Because no one is a better police chief than you."

"What about you?" Toph laughed and waved off the comment.

"Small potatoes compared to Lin Beifong." She said. "Yours is the name people are going to remember, Lin, not mine. I'm an old woman, and my prime is over. But yours is just starting." Lin just looked at her mother for a second before the old woman pulled her into a tight embrace, holding her as the tears began to flow again. And she started singing.

_Leaves from the vine _

_Falling so slow _

_Like fragile, tiny shells _

_Drifting in the foam _

_Little soldier girl _

_Come marching home _

_Brave soldier girl_

_Comes marching home._


End file.
